Out of the East, where the sun meets the sea and legends are born, comes a figure poised to captivate the baseball world. Rōki Sasaki, the 23-year-old Japanese phenom whose name already echoes in the halls of destiny, now stands at the threshold of a new chapter. On a crisp Tuesday at the Winter Meetings in Dallas, his agent, Joel Wolfe, met with reporters and…
At 23 years old, Roki Sasaki finds himself shackled by the red tape of MLB’s international bonus pool rules. Here’s the skinny, folks: Roki Sasaki, the 23-year-old flamethrower from Japan, is the talk of baseball’s hot stove. But let’s not kid ourselves—landing Sasaki is no cakewalk, thanks to MLB’s international bonus pool rules. Unless you’re 25 and a grizzled pro with six years in a…
Hats, or no hats, what first started in 2014 continues forward this year when Del Mar’s ninth fall racing meet – the “Bing Crosby Season” in honor of the track’s iconic founder – begins its four-week run Friday and goes through to Sunday, December 4. Racing will be conducted over 13 days primarily on a Friday, Saturday, Sunday basis each week with a first post…
They may class it up as “disc golf,” but it always be frisbees away for many of us. With that caveat, JC Golf has launched San Diego County’s newest disc golf course with the grand opening at The Welk in Escondido set for this week. The new course is located on The Oaks course, one of two executive golf courses on the resort property. In…
The Breeders’ Cup World Championships, the ultimate handicapping challenge for horseplayers, returns to Del Mar in Southern California this weekend, with Saturday’s schedule featuring nine championship races, including the $4 million Breeders’ Cup Turf and $6 million Breeders’ Cup Classic. The latter features an elite field. Seven of the nine horses already have won a Grade 1 race and six of the nine have earned…
(Editor’s Note: Ray Paulick’s Report, based at Lexington, Kentucky, is an authoritative home for Thoroughbred racing news shining light on the horse industry. North America’s leading independent Thoroughbred racing website can be found at www.paulickreport.com.) California’s horse racing industry has never been good at long-range planning. Instability will do that. Historic Bay Meadows racetrack in San Mateo in the Bay Area was shuttered for development…
Maybe it’s the weather allowing people to play a variety of sports full-time year-round. Maybe it’s the local San Diego County sports clubs and programs. Fact is, this county has been one of the nation’s leading producers of college and professional athletes. Local sportswriter David Willauer has compiled a list of local athletes playing baseball and football at the collegiate and pro level this year,…
SoCal Pro Wrestling will be holding its thirteenth New Year’s Retribution event on Jan. 25 at the Boys & Girls Club of Vista, CA. The event will be headlined by Ju Dizz defending his SoCal Pro Heavyweight Championship against former champion Andy Brown. Ju Dizz defeated Dirty Doug to win the SoCal Pro heavyweight Championship on April 13, 2019. Since that time he has successfully…
(This is Part 2 of a 13-part serialization of the Peter Hartwell saga. Follow new chapters of the story each weekend at The Grapevine…) “They killed my father, and now they’re coming after me.” – Marty Nolan, on the pain of being a Red Sox fan, in David Halberstam’s “The Teammates.” I walked into the drab green waiting area of the emergency room at Columbia-Presbyterian…
Willie Gillante took the mound to pitch the game that would decide if the dream gets dashed or faith is rewarded. If Willie and his precious Red Sox lost tonight, their exhausting season-long march to the world championship of baseball would be over, and the hope gone that the crown would finally come to Boston for the first time in a long eighty-six years. The…